1. Field
The present invention relates to a laboratory animal retaining appliance, which is used to give an injection, etc., to laboratory animals such as a rat and a mouse and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A retaining appliance proposed in the past allows an operation such as blood-gathering and injection and the like to be performed to a vein or an artery of a tail of a laboratory animal like a rat and a mouse, etc., by retaining the laboratory animal in a tube body of the retaining appliance, and by pulling the tail out through an end plate having a hole formed at the center thereof. (For example, see patent document 1 corresponding to Japanese Patent Document: publication number: 8-47502)
Here, when the laboratory animal is anesthetized by using the retaining appliance disclosed in the patent document 1, an intravenous injection can be used to anesthetize the laboratory animal. However, the injection to the vein of a tail often fails due to the thin vein. Therefore, an inhalation anesthesia is widely used by using gas such as diethylether and the like.
But, the gas is flammable and explosive, so that it is dangerous to an operator. Moreover, the gas smells unpleasant and does harm to the operator as well.
Further, the concentration of the gas is difficult to control, and the laboratory animal is occasionally dead due to the failure of the anesthesia before the experiment is finished. This is opposed to bioethics that the laboratory animal should feel pain as less as possible and the number of the laboratory animals used in the experiment should be minimized.
Besides, a method of injecting an anesthetic into an abdominal cavity is now used. However, the internal organs within the abdominal cavity of the laboratory animal may be injured by a needle. In addition, the anesthetic is distributed as if it coats the internal organs within the abdominal cavity, so that the anesthetic may affect the organs. Therefore, it is not suitable to use the method in an experiment using the organs within the abdominal cavity as an experimental material.
Anesthesia through intramuscular injection does not create the aforementioned problems. However, the retaining appliance disclosed in the patent document 1 is able to pull out only a tail from the end plate, so that the intramuscular injection cannot be performed. When the operator performs the intramuscular injection by himself/herself without the retaining appliance, the struggle of the laboratory animal makes the intramuscular injection very difficult, and the laboratory animal may bite the operator's hand.
The present invention is embodied in consideration of the aforementioned circumstances, and intends to provide a laboratory animal retaining appliance, which enables an operator to easily and safely perform operations such as intramuscular injection, etc., on the laboratory animal by himself/herself.